


Sunrise

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Friends, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Inline with canon, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Plot/Plotless, Scars, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Underage Smoking, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-19 13:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9441950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Sirius always stays, after the bad nights." Some of Remus's transformation nights are worse than others, and some mornings are better.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scaluwag](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaluwag/gifts).



Sirius always stays, after the bad nights.

He has to. Remus hardly expects it of them, and Peter is always too sleepy and James too early-morning irritable to be of any help even if they stayed. Sirius believes in his own self that Remus would balk if all four of them waited up for him anyway, might set his chin and put on that stubborn tone that gives every appearance of being politely self-effacing while actually proving more immoveable than any one of James’s more transient moods. Sirius tells himself that he would hold out anyway, that if he can handle McGonagall he can surely handle one of his best friends in a temper; but he’s not at all sure that the dog in him wouldn’t cringe into submission at the wolf that sparks gold behind Remus’s eyes, and if that happens then Remus truly will be alone come the morning, and Sirius can’t bear the thought of that. So he urges James and Peter to go, reminds Peter of the test he has yet to study for and James that he has a class with Lily this morning, and then he settles down in the warmest corner of the Shack with a Muggle cigarette to keep him company through the pale grey hours of dawn, and he watches Remus sleep.

It’s for his own good, Sirius tells himself. Remus is prone to nightmares even during new moons, when the shadows in his unconscious are of his own making instead of the effect of the curse he carries in his veins; on nights like tonight he can be trapped by the horrors of his psyche as much while sleeping as awake. Far kinder to jolt him awake from those than to let them continue unabated, far better to lose a few hours of sleep than to lose Remus’s comfort; so Sirius watches over him, and keeps half his attention on the frown or whimper that will come with a nightmare while the rest of his focus drifts idly over more pleasant considerations.

There are plenty to choose from. Remus looks exhausted, as he always looks exhausted after the night of the full moon; his face is haggard with lack of sleep, his skin bruised to blue at his elbows and, Sirius knows without looking, all across the thin lines of his calves and up against his thighs too. But his whole face is relaxed at the moment, all the lines of strain that usually take up residence across his forehead have eased into the calm of unconsciousness, and even the tension at his lips that usually hides like the beginning of a protest or the tremor of a held-back laugh has gone soft, letting the curve of his mouth fall open on the barely audible huff of his breathing as he sleeps. His lashes are arcs of dusty gold over the moonlight-pale scars across his face, his lips are drawn barely off-center by the tension of the marks of previous nights spent alone, before Peter and James and Sirius were around to keep Remus’s claws from the destruction of his own skin. Sirius knows all of these little details, has spent years silently memorizing Remus’s features far better than he’s ever learned the lessons in his classes; he even knows about the tiny, paper-thin scar running against the curve of Remus’s lower lip, the mark of it all but lost to the proofs of far greater injuries but still there, if one knows where to look. That one is from something mundane, something foolish -- a topple from a broomstick in second year, Sirius can still remember it as clear as day. James shouting from the other end of the field, laughing and speeding through the air in the reckless loops that he always liked even before they were done with the intent of catching Lily Evans’s eye; Peter huddled around a Heating Charm for warmth, willing to clap and cheer for anything James did while Sirius teased Remus into greater heights than the other usually dared. Remus had resisted, Sirius recalls, had creased his forehead and set his mouth in that determined pout he always did, and Sirius couldn’t resist the urge to spiral a too-quick loop around him in a little showing off of his own. He hadn’t expected Remus’s broom to jump up like a skittish horse, hadn’t expected to smash his forehead hard against the other boy’s mouth, but his expectations have never had very much to do with reality. He had realized that right after, when Peter and James were still running over from the other end of the field while Sirius babbled apologies and Remus spat blood and caught his breath and then looked up with his mouth scarlet and curving on amusement to go with the laughter of “I _did_ tell you” and the first real smile Sirius had ever seen from him. Sirius’s stomach had dropped, his whole world spinning around him as if Remus had casually inverted gravity on him, and it had been right then, as Remus turned to wave reassurance to the other two and lifted his hand to wipe the blood from his bleeding lip, that Sirius had known he wanted nothing so much in all his life as to kiss the hurt from the soft of Remus’s mouth with his own.

It’s his own secret. He thinks Peter would accept it, if he knew, thinks James _does_ know just from the number of times Sirius has looked up from a prolonged perusal of Remus’s distracted face to find his friend watching him consideringly; but they never talk about it, and Sirius prefers it that way. Remus is beautiful, and brilliant, and the most incredible person Sirius has ever seen; and he can’t impose on the friendship they have between them, not when it’s been such a comfort to the both of them for so many years. So he stays quiet, and he stays at Remus’s side, and if he could trace the scar at Remus’s mouth with his eyes closed at least it serves as proof of some kind of impact on those lips that have so held his attention for so long.

“You shouldn’t smoke, Padfoot.”

Sirius jumps. He had gotten lost in his own thoughts, wandering down the hazy paths of memory and well-worn logic until he forgot where he was and who he was with. For a brief moment he’s afraid Remus has seen the way Sirius is looking at him; but when he blinks himself into focus Remus’s eyes are still closed, there’s only the tension of a repressed smile at the corner of the other’s mouth to speak to his consciousness.

“How do you know it’s me?” Sirius asks with as much off-hand charm as he can muster around the adrenaline-rushed beat of his heart. “Maybe Peter’s decided to pick up another of my bad habits.”

“Don’t be daft,” Remus says without opening his eyes. “It’s always you.” Sirius’s heart drops for a moment, skipping over a beat at the unintended romance under those words; but Remus is turning over to lie on his back instead of curled on his side, and he continues speaking towards the ceiling without pausing for Sirius’s personal crisis. “Peter’s too nervous to stay here by himself, and when James sneaks cigarettes they smell better than those awful things you like.”

“They’re not awful,” Sirius informs him, but he knows he lacks any evidence for this argument so he doesn’t push the point. “You’d think Peter’d know better than to be afraid of the ghost stories when he’s the cause of them himself.”

“Yes, well.” Remus lifts a hand from the floor and up to push the tawny weight of his hair off his forehead; his lashes shift, tensing for a moment before he risks opening his eyes. “Peter’s Peter, you know how he is.”

“Yeah.” Sirius isn’t paying a lot of attention to what he’s agreeing to; it’s easy to offer support to whatever it is Remus is saying when he’s focused on the shift of the other’s lashes and the way the sunlight spilling through the cracks in the walls around them turns Remus’s eyes to clear gold in its illumination. “You’re right, he _is_ kind of an idiot.”

Remus snorts. “At least _he’s_ at class right now.” He lowers his arm to the floor, takes an audible breath to brace himself; when he pushes against his elbow it’s with enough force to win himself a few inches of height, even if Sirius can see the effort run through the whole of the other’s shoulder like an earthquake. “Unlike _some_.”

“That’s right,” Sirius agrees. “I can’t believe you, Moony, you slacker.” He crushes the cigarette at his lips out against the dusty floorboards under him, leaves the half-burnt paper where it lies as he leans forward to come up over his knees so he can reach for Remus’s free arm to support the other’s weight. “You’ll never become a prefect at this rate.”

“Shut up,” Remus says, but he’s smiling that soft smile Sirius can sometimes win from him, and he’s closing his fingers around the support of the other’s wrist to steady himself. His hand presses close against Sirius’s bare skin, the warmth of the contact casual and unthinking; Sirius can feel it like a brand, as if Remus’s fingers are determined to mark Sirius with a match for that tiny, almost invisible scar left by Sirius’s forehead colliding with the other’s lower lip. “At least the professors know I’ll be absent. Don’t you think they’re going to get suspicious when you’re constantly gone the same time I am?”

“‘Course not,” Sirius says with offhand confidence. “That’s why I had the wisdom to send Wormy and Prongs back to class to cover for me. No one will think model student Remus Lupin is getting up to trouble with delinquent Sirius Black, after all.”

Remus’s teeth catch at his lower lip in a futile attempt to hold back the tug of his smile. “They’ll just think you’re getting up to trouble all on your own.”

“Sure,” Sirius says easily. “Probably they’ll have it about that I’ve slept with half of Hufflepuff House before lunch, you know how it is. A reputation is an important thing to maintain, Moony, you ought to know that.”

“As opposed to not sleeping at all in a haunted shack.” Remus’s smile flickers, the curve of his mouth giving way to the weight of uncertainty; for a moment Sirius can see all the pain of the night before written clear in the other’s features, in the shadows behind his brown eyes and the dusty tangle of his hair and the array of bruises standing clear at the insides of his wrists and the back of his neck. Remus ducks his head, hiding his expression behind the soft fall of his hair, and when he draws his hand away from Sirius’s wrist it’s to press his arm in around himself, to wrap his hold around his stomach like he’s defending himself and hunching his shoulders in around the pressure like he’s trying to make a wall of his spine. His shirt is torn at one shoulder; Sirius can see the rust color of a bloodstain set into the pale fabric, evidence of an injury so usual he doubts Remus even feels it amidst the cacophony of pain he must be experiencing.

“Thank you,” Remus says to his knees, his voice as soft as the color of his hair and aching with some measure of the pain caught in the angle of his shoulders. “I really don’t deserve you.”

Sirius is glad Remus isn’t looking at him, glad the other doesn’t see the way his face crumples into a moment of pain at the self-deprecation on the other’s voice, at the twisted ache of self-loathing that tears at Remus’s core far more effectively than his moonlit claws have ever torn at his skin. This is a special kind of pain for Sirius to endure, worse than the vitriolic rejection of his family and worse than anything he could do or experience himself; bad enough to watch someone he loves hurt himself one night a month without having to see it bleed over into the day too.

“You’re right,” he says, aiming for casual cheer and hearing his voice creak and break over the emotion he can’t help himself from feeling, can’t restrain back into any kind of reasonable level. He’s reaching out over the gap between himself and Remus, acting on the same simple instinct that sends him barking through the shadowy woods alongside the wolf who is more friend than horror, the same straightforward desire to be closer, to touch, to hold, to express with his body what comfort his words never quite manage to carry. “You’re _way_ too good for me, how did you ever manage to get stuck with me as one of your best friends?”

Remus huffs, but the sound is only barely managing to masquerade as a laugh instead of the sob Sirius can feel threatening in the hunch of the thin shoulders under his arm. “That’s not what I--”

“I mean James is pretty great,” Sirius says, fast, talking over whatever protest Remus is ready to offer to his own worth, to his own value as a person. “And Peter’s a good guy, I think. He definitely tries harder than I do.” He has his arm completely around Remus’s shoulders now, is close enough to press his forehead hard against the silky soft of Remus’s hair just over his ear; he nuzzles in against the strands, some lingering instinct from a night spent transformed guiding him through the simple comfort of physical contact as the best means to derail the complicated web of misery trying to form itself in Remus’s thoughts. “I don’t know why you keep putting up with that Sirius Black guy though, he’s--” as he drops into his best imitation of his mother’s posh accent, the one she puts on when she’s being a particularly awful person: “--a _bad influence_.”

“You are not,” Remus protests, but the words come out weak and distracted; he has his hand up against Sirius’s chest in a futile attempt to push the other off him, but either he’s a lot more exhausted even than he looks or he’s not trying very hard, because Sirius doesn’t even have to try to resist the urging. “Get off me, you overgrown puppy.”

“Won’t,” Sirius tells him, taking advantage of Remus’s choice of insult and affecting a half-formed attempt at a bark as he presses his nose in behind the curve of the other’s ear, close enough that his mouth is almost brushing the smooth skin of the other’s neck. “You were insulting someone I love, I won’t stop until you take it back.”

“I _wasn’t_ \--” Remus begins, and Sirius heads him off mid-sentence with the application of his fingers against the bottom edge of Remus’s ribs, just against the loose edge of his shirt in that place that always makes Remus stiffen and gasp in helpless, reflexive reaction. His hand at Sirius’s chest tightens to a fist, his breath rushes out of him in a “ _Sirius_ ” that is probably intended as a warning and just sounds panicked, and Sirius promptly commences with the threatened tickling. Remus shouts half-formed protest, his voice echoing off the thin walls around them like the rumored ghost has become far more vocal and excitable with the advent of daylight, and Sirius grins against the other’s neck and keeps going relentlessly. Remus kicks against the floor, twisting in an attempt to bring both hands to bear on the problem of pushing Sirius away, but Sirius has his arm around Remus’s shoulders and it’s not difficult to worm his way past the other’s touch to press his fingers close to the lines of ribs that always sit a little too close to the skin at this time of the month. Remus yelps at the contact, his whole body tensing involuntarily against the friction of Sirius’s touch; but he’s laughing, too, that breathless, hiccuping laugh of true sincerity in the back of his throat, and Sirius is grinning, his breathing spilling into the weight of amusement in perfect echo of Remus’s. Remus’s efforts to push him off flag and fail, his hold on Sirius’s shirt turns to a drag instead of a push, and finally Sirius subsides, letting his attack give way as he draws back by an inch to beam at the breathless warmth flushing all Remus’s face to simple delight.

“There,” Sirius says, feeling deeply self-satisfied. “And let that be a lesson to you.”

“Yes,” Remus says, a little bit breathless around the tension of the smile working at his lips. “Consider me thoroughly chastised.” He lifts his gaze to meet Sirius’s, his mouth still soft on happiness and his eyes bright with laughter; and Sirius is suddenly, painfully aware of how close they are. His arm is still around Remus’s shoulders, the casual warmth of the contact left to linger well past the point of friendly affection; he can feel the shift of the other’s shoulderblades against his arm, can feel the motion of tension building in the other’s body as Remus’s smile flickers, as his gaze drops down to skim Sirius’s expression. Sirius doesn’t know what his face is giving away -- too much, he’s sure, he ought to duck his head or turn away or even just let Remus go -- but he can’t manage to pull his gaze away from the other, not when the sunlight is bringing out flecks of gold in the chocolate-dark of Remus’s eyes and washing his hair to a soft bronze halo around his head. Remus blinks and his lashes shift like dusty gold, catching the light pale and priceless as his focus wanders across Sirius’s face like a touch, like he’s trying to deliberately catalog all the details of the other’s expression like books in a library.

“Remus,” Sirius says, and doesn’t realize until Remus blinks shock at him that he’s called the other by his first name, by the name that is too inextricably tied to the heat of imagined pleasure on Sirius’s tongue for him to dare give it voice under the facade of friendship. His tone has dipped soft, he can hear it, can feel the resonance of wanting at the back of his throat; but then he’s certain the same is clear all across his face, repressed affection sliding free of his control to trace out the play of sunlight across the exhausted lines of Remus’s face.

Remus’s lashes shift again, his lips part on a deliberate inhale. “Sirius?” He sounds unsure, hesitant, like he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing in the other’s expression, as if there can be any confusion at all when Sirius can feel his heart in his eyes, can feel the tremor of too-much want pulling to a frown of intention at his mouth. Remus’s forehead is creasing, his mouth tightening on hesitation; Sirius can feel the strain forming in the other’s body, can feel the intent to draw away tightening across the delicate shoulderblades just under his arm. If he waits another moment, another heartbeat, Remus will shy away, Remus will pull back, Remus will be gone; so Sirius doesn’t wait. He acts instead, impulsivity seizing hold of him with all the certainty of gravity drawing him towards the center of the earth, and he leans in, and he presses his mouth to Remus’s.

Remus’s lips are warm. The morning has been reaching for heat as the sun rises, as its golden glow saturates the air with the comfort of radiant temperature; but Remus is warmer, his mouth softer, his lashes more golden than even those dusty rays of sunlight breaking through the cracks in the walls to lay stripes of illumination across the both of them. Sirius’s fingers slide up, brushing feather-light against the trailing ends of Remus’s hair against the back of his neck; they’re growing long, falling into a fine weight so unlike the heavy dark of Sirius’s own shaggy hair. His lips are barely parted, Sirius can just feel the gap between them like the suggestion of more at his own; but Sirius doesn’t push for more, doesn’t press in to urge forward to taste the inside of Remus’s mouth, to test the heat of the other’s breathing against his tongue. He just lingers as he is for a brief, warm moment of something simple as this: his mouth, Remus’s lips, the two pressed together into sun-soft friction, and then he collects the scattered pieces of his attention, and fits back into himself, and draws back as gently as he came in.

Remus takes a moment to open his eyes. For the first span of time Sirius is left to gaze at the blank calm of the other’s face, at the relaxed give of his mouth damp from the press of Sirius’s own and the arc of those lashes so light and delicate against scarred-over cheekbones. There’s a smudge of dirt against Remus’s jaw, a suggestion of a bruise coming at the corner of his eye; Sirius stares at them with focused attention, his whole being drawing in to pick apart the individual details of what he’s seeing because it’s easier than trying to encompass the whole of what he’s just done, it’s easier than facing the unbearable strain of waiting to see how Remus will react. He’s caught against that scar at Remus’s lip again, his gaze worrying against the edge of it like nervous fingers against a loose thread, when Remus’s throat works on a swallow, and Remus’s lashes lift from his moment of thought, and Sirius lifts his gaze to meet and hold the full force of Remus’s attention on him.

“You kissed me,” Remus says, carefully, like he’s not quite sure of the words or perhaps not clear how they fit into his conception of the world.

Sirius’s throat knots on a bubble of something too hysterical for him to call either laughter or a sob. It takes him a moment to collect himself enough even to duck his head into the agreement the comment -- the question? -- deserves. “Yeah.”

Remus’s lashes shift. “On purpose.”

Sirius does laugh, then, a bright bark of sound better suited to his Animagus form than to his present status. “No, my goodness, Moony, I’ve made a terrible mistake and fallen against your lips. My apologies, mate, meant nothing by it, accidents do happen and all that.”

Remus’s mouth twitches. “I do know how clumsy you are.”

“I am _not_ clumsy--” Sirius starts, his pride in his own grace flaring for a moment before he catches on to Remus’s implication and fumbles himself around and out of his protest. “I mean, yes, of course, you know me. Once fell down three flights of stairs and up a fourth before I collected myself, surely you remember.”

“Of course,” Remus says, visibly fighting with the strain of a smile at his lips, now. “That is, of course, the only reason I keep you around. You make me look so graceful by point of comparison.”

“Of course,” Sirius agrees, and then his heart twists on a fresh surge of adrenaline, and his attempt at casual banter fails him as he meets Remus’s gaze. There’s no sign of dislike behind the other’s eyes, none of the icy wall of hatred Sirius had been so painfully sure he would be met with if he once let his guard down; but neither is there the ecstasy he’s imagined, sometimes, during those late-night fantasies that always turn down routes of implausible feats of athleticism and more flexibility and stamina than the human body is probably capable of. Remus is just watching him, the way he always watches Sirius, his whole expression as level and calm as if Sirius had simply said _good morning_ rather than pressed the weight of a kiss against his mouth.

Sirius swallows hard, feels his breath sticking far in the back of his throat like it’s not sure where to go, like his lungs have forgotten how to do their job correctly. When he speaks his voice is rough, dragging down into the lowest depths of his register to grate over gravel instead of the sleek resonance he usually aims for. “Bloody hell, Moony, aren’t you going to say something?”

Remus’s lashes flutter. “I _have_ been speaking, you know, Padfoot.”

“You haven’t been _saying_ anything” and Sirius’s voice is breaking, he can feel himself edging into hysterical strain and he can’t catch back his evaporating composure, he can’t pull himself back to calm from the precipice of budding panic in his chest. “Are you. Do you…” Sirius breaks off into a whimper in the back of his throat, a pleading sound more from the animal that sleeps inside his veins than from the usual coherency of his human form. “ _Remus_.”

Remus’s mouth twitches. It’s just for a moment, just a brief tug up at one corner like a leak in some impenetrable dam; but Sirius is staring at him, desperate for any kind of feedback, and his attention latches onto it with instant speed, his focus drawing in hard against the other’s lips. Remus tightens his mouth and ducks his head forward, like he’s trying to cast the clarity of his features into shadow, but it’s not enough to hide the quiver at his lips, and it’s not enough to stop the slow rise of heat in Sirius’s chest, the flicker of hope pressing so tight against him that for a moment it’s hard even to catch a breath enough to fill his lungs with air.

“I do,” Remus says towards the floor, and then he looks up through the feathery weight of his lashes, his head tipping just to the side as his mouth twists on the threat of amusement again. “I am. Whichever it was you were asking.”

“Oh,” Sirius says. He can almost feel his coherency draining out of him, leaving him as speechless as if he’s been rendered mute by the simple confirmation of Remus’s words. “You are?”

Remus’s smile breaks across the whole of his face, tugging at familiar scars and new bruises alike to crinkle in the corners of his eyes and brighten the whole of his tired expression into the dawn of sincere happiness. “I am,” he says, and he tips in closer by an inch, just enough to gently bump his forehead against Sirius’s. The impact isn’t hard, it’s barely more than a tap, but Sirius can feel it run through the whole of his body and into the marrow of his bones, as if Remus’s touch has lit up some as-yet-unknown power in him to surge bright and glowing against the inside of his chest. “You too?”

Sirius huffs the heat of an exhale against Remus’s mouth close against his. “Yeah. Yes. Me too.”

Remus’s laugh purrs over Sirius’s lips. “I’m glad,” he says, and then he lifts his chin, and tips his head, and fits his mouth close against the part of Sirius’s lips. His lips are soft, gentle even with the faint tension of that scar marking a separation against the curve of the bottom one; and then Remus’s fingers come up into Sirius’s hair, and Remus’s tongue touches against Sirius’s mouth, and Sirius is too busy sparking into sunlit warmth at Remus’s careful exploration to think about even such important details as the feel of the other’s mouth on his.

He doesn’t mind too much. He has a feeling this is a line of study he’ll never be tired of pursuing.


End file.
